Blue and Gray
by The Uninspired
Summary: Civil War AU. The Battles of Spotsylvania, VA and Piper's Cove, KY. Shules, and no Shassie whatsoever. Also a little Karlton, but don't hate. Rated for violence and mild swearing.
1. The Battle of Spotsylvania

**a/n;** I'm back again! This time with a Civil War AU. Because I could not resist.

I know, I know. I haven't been here in a while. I swear, Duty Calls is _not_ finished yet until I get sequels to those chapters that I need to have some closure on and whatnot, but bear with me. I wrote this on a whim while procrastinating on a crapload of projects because I couldn't get the idea out of my head. Give me a few days and I'll update DC, I promise.

For those of you who know me from psychfic, this comes before Piper's Cove. I'll upload that one here next, and this one on psychfic today. Don't worry.

So...enjoy!

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><p>He's not sure when he decided to fake being a psychic. Maybe it had something to do with his hyper observance, due in part to his <em>lovely<em> father, Henry, or maybe it had something to do with his stupid spur of moment ideas, but either way, he can't go back now.

Sean Spencer joins a regiment to stay with his girlfriend.

The colonel is Kaine Vick, a man with noticeably long eyelashes. He's not really the one giving the orders, though. It's mostly the lieutenant colonel, Muscum T. Lassiter, the rough, lanky man with the facial hair and the steel blue eyes that will stare into your soul. The colonel hired this so-called 'psychic' to stay on top of the game. So, he brought along his family's 'slave' and lifetime friend, Burton Guster, and hopped on board with this regiment out of Maryland.

Spring was turning into summer in Virginia, and it was not pretty. Spencer swipes his arm over his forehead for what has to be the thousandth time that day. His girlfriend, Julia O'Hara, grins at him from the other side of the formation. He smiles back, noticing that he still gets butterflies from just looking at her.

It's a tiring day of marching. A battle is raging in Spotsylvania, and all regiments nearby were called to the site to end this battle quickly. Colonel Vick is up front, her horse panting for water, while Lieutenant Lassiter is at the back of the regiment, his horse walking at a considerably slower pace. O'Hara is next to him, and they're chatting quietly. Spencer frowns - but he doesn't do anything. She's allowed to have her friends.

"It's hot." Spencer looks over to see Guster suddenly next to him. He grins, throwing his arm around his friend's shoulders.

"Well, Gus, this is the beauty of roughing it."

"Sean, you've drunken two times the amount of water as any other given soldier."

"Ah, well, it's roughing it for me."

Suddenly, the troops stop moving. Guster stops at the right time, but Spencer, oblivious, stumbles into the soldier in front of him. The soldier, Buck McNab, gives the psychic a light smile and turns back around to face Colonel Vick.

"We're stopping for the night," he announces. "Set up camp, but don't get too comfortable. We're leaving first thing tomorrow."

Spencer sighs in the most obnoxious way possible, plopping himself down on the grass where he stands. The regiments starts putting up tents in the field, and O'Hara sits down next to the psychic.

"Hi, Sean," she greets with a smile. He grins.

"Hi Jules."

Before they can start a conversation, Lassiter rides over on his horse, effectively interrupting the conversation.

"Spencer!" he barks. "You're a psychic, but it doesn't mean you're exempt from helping. Guster looks like he's struggling over there." And the lieutenant rides away. O'Hara smirks; Spencer sighs heavily, standing up.

"I guess I'd better go do that."

Spencer pulls all the strings he can to get a tent alone with O'Hara. It requires McNab and ten other soldiers to sleep on the hard ground, and Spencer to sacrifice his biscuit rations for the next ten days, but it's worth it. The happy couple cuddles like nothing's wrong in the world.

"Sean?" O'Hara asks out of nowhere. "How bad do you think this battle is?"

Spencer sighs heavily, stroking her hair absently. It's a pretty blonde usually, but recently it's been getting darker...like the war is changing her. He hopes it isn't. "Well, Jules...the spirits are telling me that it's bad." She gasps a little gasp. "But our regiment is strong...we'll pull through."

"You won't...fight, will you?" she whispers.

"I won't, but Lassiter might want me to. He's always trying to get all the man power he can, y'know."

Suddenly, the canvas of their tent is hit, making a startling noise. "Oi! Spencer! O'Hara!" the gruff voice of Muscum Lassiter calls. "Meet me in the Colonel's tent pronto!"

"Will do, Lassie!" Spencer shouts back, sharing a look with his girlfriend. Lassiter's snort is audible from inside the tent.

The couple show up at the Colonel's tent in a matter of minutes. Lassiter is already there, standing in a corner of the tent. Colonel Vick is standing facing the back canvas.

"What's this about, then?" Spencer asks, running a hand through his hair. O'Hara looks curiously as Lassiter, who's her best friend of sorts. He meets her gaze for a split second.

"You have to promise this conversation won't leave this tent."

Spencer immediately raised his right hand. "I swear on my life, Lassie."

Lassiter rolls his eyes at the name, the contempt obvious on his face. O'Hara smiles a bit at their interaction.

"Colonel?"

Colonel Kaine Vick turns around, looking nervous. Spencer can see something different about him - his posture, his expression, his height (compared to Lassiter, at least), his...hair? He removes her hat, and it all becomes clear.

He is actually she.

"Colonel..." O'Hara breathes. Spencer is processing it all through his mind at lightning speed. It explains the eyelashes, the voice, the somewhat feminine face...She could be pretty if she didn't have to pretend to be a man to command a regiment.

"Not a word of this goes outside of this tent," Lassiter reminds them, growling.

"So what's your real name?" Spencer blurts out, finally.

"And why are you telling _us_?" O'Hara adds.

They spend the next ten minutes clearing up the detail. Colonel Kaine Vick is really Colonel Karen Vick, a woman in disguise with a passion for her country. A nurse and a psychic were informed so if he-no, _she_- was wounded, they'd be able to fix her up without too much shock and controversy.

"Who else knows?" O'Hara asks.

"Guster. That's it," Lassiter answers bluntly, still not looking very happy.

"I'm honored to be part of this secret," Spencer says, bowing mockingly. Lassiter rolls his eyes, folding his arms over his chest. Vick just gives him a look.

"You can leave now, Spencer," the lieutenant snarls. Judging by the tone of his voice, O'Hara can tell he's not happy, and takes her boyfriend by the arm and leads him out and back to their tent.

Sleep comes easily enough, but it's not very pleasant. They're rudely awakened to a bugle going off, and horses trampling by their tent. They're dressed in a matter of minutes, stumbling out into the bright, incredibly sticky Virginia day.

"Spencer!" Lassiter barks, riding up to the two. "Get a move on. We've got to get to Spotsylvania, _fast_."

"What's happening, Lassiter?" O'Hara asks. They trot alongside the horse to keep the conversation going. He doesn't look very happy, so this news can't be very good.

"Massive casualties," Lassiter answers gravely, "mostly on our side. They tried to take the hill from the flank...rumors are circulating that we're going to get trampled, so we've got to get there _fast_.

The entire regiment is required to run to keep up with the horses flanking them. Lassiter gave in and let O'Hara sit behind him on his horse, which Spencer was not happy with at all. He kept himself entertained by bothering Guster, who was trying hard to keep up with the soldiers.

They came to Spotslyvania to a bloodbath.

Dying men are strewn across the battlefield, their uniforms almost unidentifiable. They're almost immediately flung into battle, and Lassiter gives up his horse to O'Hara and Spencer, taking off with his saber drawn. Several soldiers set up the medical tents behind a thicket, almost hidden from view, but O'Hara stays with her boyfriend.

"We're in this together, remember?" she tells him, with fire in her eyes. He has no choice but to let her stay with him on the horse.

Eventually, the horse is wounded.

A Confederate soldier shoots it in the kneecap, causing it to crumple. The couple jumps off, avoiding bayonet slashes from the soldier. Spencer puts his foot down on the musket barrel, punching the soldier in the face so hard it makes his knuckles bleed. They run, nearly crashing into Lassiter, who has a deep slash in his left arm. There's a cut running across his eye, and it's closed so no blood gets in it, but his vision is getting blurry anyway.

"O'Hara?" he questions, gasping for air. It takes her a second to realize it's her best friend with the cut that's gushing blood all over his face. The piercing blue suddenly doesn't seem so threatening anymore. "Get off the battlefield!"

"I would think the same applies to you!" she shouts back. Spencer puts an arm underneath the lieutenant's, holding him up. Lassiter resists the help, but eventually gives in.

"Hey!" a rebel shouts from far away. A musket is raised.

"Spencer, move!" Lassiter manages to say. Before the psychic can even move, Lassiter hears the musket go off. He closes his one eye.

Nothing hits him.

He opens his eye to see O'Hara crumpled on the ground.

"Julia!" Spencer is on the ground in an instant. Lassiter sheathes his sword, dropping to his knees and examining the wound. It's hit her lower leg, thankfully not too straight to hit the bone or any major veins.

They make fast work. Lassiter picks her up, and Spencer makes sure her leg is kept elevated and in a position where it's not too painful for her. Guster, in the medical tent, immediately runs to tend to her, while Penny Winslow wraps a stretch of heated cotton around Lassiter's arm wound, cleans up the cut on his face, and sends him back out into battle.

O'Hara's grip on Shawn's hand is so tight, he swears she broke one of the bones. But he doesn't care anymore, because her surviving is all that matters. The bullet has already exited, but the exit wound is nasty. It takes a lot of water to clear the blood, and Guster tops it off by dabbing the wounds with alcohol. O'Hara is trying desperately hard not to scream, and Spencer is pretty sure his hand is broken by that point.

"Damn it, Sean, talk to her," Guster snaps, putting a bullet in between O'Hara's teeth. Spencer, swallows hard, and the words just kind of spill out of his mouth.

"Julia," he starts, his voice quiet. Guster is keeping her leg wrapped in cloth while he waits for the cotton to heat. "I just want you to know that, no matter what, I'll always love you. You know how I've never devoted to a thing in my life?" She nods shortly. It's a motion that would've gone unnoticed if he wasn't paying such close attention to her face. "W-Well, you're the one thing I'm willing to commit everything to."

There's a flicker of a smile on her face, and that sparkle in her eye is brighter than ever. Spencer can't help but think that she always looks beautiful, even when in extreme pain.

"And...I guess the one thing I can ask is..." He looks around, pulling out a long strand of grass and tying it in a loop. "Julia O'Hara...will you marry me?"

Guster looks at his best friend in utter disbelief, pulling the cotton off its stake above the fire. O'Hara's face splits into a grin, and she manages to sit up. The grin is contagious, and soon, Sean is grinning stupidly, unable to control the muscles in his face anymore.

"Of course, Sean," Julia murmurs, and they kiss. Gus starts clapping, and Penny joins in. The soldiers in the tent are too out of it to even register what's happening.

"Now move, Sean," Gus says, pushing the psychic out of the way once they break apart. "She has a wound."

Lassiter stumbles into the tent. The gash in his arm has bleed clean through his makeshift bandage. "Grant disengaged," he manages. "We beat them back, but Grant's headed toward Richmond."

"So what does this mean for us?" Sean asks, as Gus secures the bandage around Julia's leg.

"Grant vaguely mentioned something about a Confederate Colonel," Lassiter says, letting Penny lead him to a cot and sit him down. "Quatrail, I think his name was. We're to head west and keep an eye on him."

Silence falls through the tent as Penny tends to the gash in Lassiter's arm. Sean finally speaks up.

"Did you know Julia and I are getting married?"


	2. The Battle of Piper's Cove

**a/n;** a little bit longer than the last one, and a little bloodier because this is written in lassiter's point of view and he actually fights, but i promise it's nothing too gory.

karen/carlton, anyone?

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><p>It's dark, and dark is all he sees.<p>

It's an incredibly humid night, but so it is in Kentucky during the summer. It wouldn't bother him if he wasn't the one patrolling that night, in his hot, stuffy uniform with his saber pulling uncomfortably on his hip and his musket in hand. But the Civil War was never not brutal.

Muscum T. Lassiter steps into Colonel Vick's tent. She - or as her troops better know, _he _- is sitting at her desk, looking over some paper. Lassiter stands with at ease, holding his musket barrel down. She looks up, and beneath those gorgeous hazel eyes are dark rings. She's been working hard for months now - but all the captains have.

"Lieutenant," she greets lightly. "I'm glad it's you."

"No one else is allowed in here without permission, Colonel," he responds curtly, relaxing a bit. "I wish that weren't necessary."

"These are sexist days, Muscum," she murmurs, standing up and grabbing her hat. She pulls her hair into a neat bun - it's a pretty color, a sort of honey blonde, but in the candlelight it looks more of a mousy brown. Vick's always been an expert at hiding her gender, and Lassiter has always been in awe of it. She tucks the bun into her hat, and for a second, the woman vanishes - and then she talks. "How's the O'Hara situation?"

"She's getting along fine," Lassiter sighs, blue eyes looking down at the dusty ground. His boots, formerly well-polished, are now a dingy brownish color. The leather is now soft and worn, and dusted with the earth of many states. "The wound'll heal, but I doubt she ever will. Our psychic is outraged by this."

By conformity, Colonel Vick had allowed a psychic to travel with the troops. That kind of magic wasn't exactly smiled upon, but Spencer knew his stuff. He claimed to be able to predict battle plans, but most of what he showed them was common sense and incredibly great foresight. Hiring him wasn't a complete loss, though - his insight was helpful at times, when common sense was abandoned for exhaustion.

"Well, at least she's getting along."

Lassiter nods, absently fiddling with a stray string coming off of his uniform. The first thought that crosses his mind is "_Maybe I'll get O'Hara to sew this back up_", but then he remembers, she's unable to work. That's what she gets for taking a bullet for her fiancé, the 'psychic', but her bravery was admired by everyone. The Colonel exits the tent, leaving her lieutenant alone with his thoughts. It's been a while since he's stood in silence, and his fear comes running back to him, but that doesn't last long.

"Men!" Colonel Vick barks, in her man voice. It's a high baritone, believably masculine but an easy enough tone for a woman such as Karen Vick to manage on a constant basis. _Kaine_Vick (the male identity she assumes), however, finds his voice annoying and wishes it were more menacing. "Get back to work!" For a second, Lassiter thinks she's talking to him, and his posture goes rigid - but then he relaxes, exiting the tent. The air is still stifling, but he's getting used to it.

As a sort of habit, Lassiter starts toward the medical tent. Julia O'Hara, one of the nurses accompanying the regiment, had sort of grown close to the calloused lieutenant, being a steady companion who was one of the only people to put him in his place without much effort. Ever since the accident, he'd been checking up on her whenever possible, given, of course, that Spencer was not already by her side. He walked into the dimly lit tent, a single person shuffling about.

"Guster?" Lassiter asks, knitting his brows together. The former slave looks up, saluting to greet his commanding officer.

"Lieutenant," he says politely, shifting among the men sitting on the cots.

"Kinda great that Gus is good with medicine, huh?" a voice pipes, and Lassiter looks over to see Sean Spencer crouched next to O'Hara's bed. The lanky lieutenant strides over to the other side of the straw mattress and plops himself down, aware of how dusty he'll get from doing this. "Yeah, he worked the pharmacy back home. He was always the best at it. Way better than me, anyway."

"You mean people actually trusted you with their health?" Lassiter scoffs, folding his arms over his chest. O'Hara smiles weakly at them. She had managed to sit up in her cot, leaning against a stack of hay. Spencer frowns, but the lieutenant colonel can't see him in the dim candlelight. O'Hara places a hand on Lassiter's, and even though he's wearing gloves, he can feel that she's burning up.

"Get some sleep, Lieutenant," she murmurs. "You have a regiment to command tomorrow."

Lassiter nods, standing up. Before he leaves the tent, he pulls another nurse, Penny Winslow to the side. She's disgruntled, and has an emotional shell made up of indestructible metal. Confederator Quatrail burned her family to ashes in Kansas, but she's a fiercely determined nurse who will get revenge.

"Is she breaking a fever?" he asks, trying not to make his tone sound too aggressive. "Because, I swear to God-"

"Lieutenant, I have it under control," Winslow answers without batting an eyelash. "I just have one request."

"What's that?"

"Let me get my hands on a musket," she growls, flexing her fingers as if she could imagine the firearm in her hands. Lassiter looks her head to toe.

"Can you handle one?"

"I was raised with five older brothers, Lieutenant. I know how to work a gun."

Without a word, Lassiter hands her his musket and walks out of the tent. He's not terribly worried; he can get his hands on a brand-new one by dawn. He smoothes down his uniform, brushes some dust off of his pants, and takes O'Hara's advice.

It's not a peaceful sleep.

He has nightmares of the family he left at home, being burned alive by the Confederacy. Lassiter's never met Quatrail, but he imagines he's not a pleasant man. He wakes up in a cold sweat, with the first signs of sunlight barely visible over the horizon.

Colonel Vick is in front of his tent when he exits, pushing his hair down and fumbling with the buttons of his uniform. He's taken aback for a second, because her hair is down and she looks as grave as she did when they stumbled upon the dying embers of that town in Kansas. She holds up an envelope.

"Bad news?" Lassiter asks, taking it and opening it not so gently. She nods solemnly, pulling her hair back up into her cap. He flips it open, only to immediately wish to rip it up.

Quatrail was heading towards them.

"We...we'll have to cut them off on the bridge," Lassiter says, putting it back in the envelope and donning his hat. "There's a forest on one side; we can surprise them."

The bugle was sounded; all of the soldiers were up in a matter of moments. Lassiter got himself a musket from one of the night owl shift soldiers, who got to rest during the day.

"Okay, men!" Colonel Vick barks to her disgruntled soldiers, who were rubbing their eyes and stretching. It was okay at the moment, since this wasn't exactly a formal briefing. She filled them in, which easily got their attention, and sent them off to make sure they had enough bullets and have any health concerns checked out.

"Lassiter? Can I see you?" Vick asks. Lassiter nods, following her into her tent. Vick removes her hat, setting it down on the desk with a sigh.

"Do you think we'll make it?"

Lassiter is shocked. Taken aback, he blinks before stammering out an answer. "U-Uhm, yes, Colonel. I think we can handle it." She looks into his eyes, and he looks down. "I mean, I think we can."

"And what if I get discovered, Lassiter?" she asks quietly, shifting around her desk to stand in front of him. Vick has to keep her voice down in fear of being discovered, but he wishes she didn't. "Getting hurt can mean nothing but bad things for me..."

"There's a reason we have a nurse on the inside," Lassiter says firmly. "Guster. He's aware."

"But how loyal is he?"

The hazel and the bright blue clash again. Lassiter falters a little.

"I-I couldn't say for sure, Colonel," he murmurs, looking down. "But what I do know? We're going to make it out of this alive. You're skilled enough, and we've trained these troops well enough to have them survive. Yes, Quatrail is a monster, but he's nothing compared to us." He takes a breath. "And nothing, I repeat, _nothing_ will change that. You hear me?"

In a fit of passion, they kiss. Neither of them are quite aware of what's happening, but it's the first kiss both of them have had in months, and it's fiery. They pull apart at the same time, out of breath.

"No one hears about this," Vick whispers, and Lassiter nods, unable to speak. They hear bugles and snares going off all of a sudden, and the colonel puts on her hat quickly as a soldier bursts in.

"Colonel!" he exclaims. Lassiter recalls his name as Buck McNab, the gangly-limbed and clumsy, but loyal, soldier. He's clutching his musket with the barrel facing himself. "They're coming."

"Damn," she swears. Lassiter runs out behind McNab, with Vick in tow. The lieutenant colonel jumps on his horse in the most haphazard way, already feeling the bruises starting to form. His horse rears back on its hind legs, neighing, and sets off with the rest of the regiment behind him.

"Charge!"

And it's already a bloodbath. They stop Quatrail about halfway across the bridge, in a clash they're sure everyone in a mile radius can hear. Lassiter spots Spencer dodging a bayonet, fleeing from the advances of the Confederacy and trying to get his hands on some kind of weapon. Vick is prowling on the edge of the battlefield, Penny Winslow is peeking out of the medical tent every few minutes, and Lassiter is back on his horse, watching the battle unfold.

A soldier breaks through the front lines and comes charging towards Lassiter. Without a thought, he rips his saber out of his sheath and scores it along the soldier's chest. The line of red explodes onto the gray canvas, and the Confederate troop grabs Lassiter's leg as he crumples. The grip is killer; Lassiter is, surprisingly, dragged off his horse, hitting the ground face first. The stiff, dry grass scrapes his cheek, and it's at that moment that he realizes why the air is so humid.

It's a drought. It hasn't rained in weeks here. Having cannons going off could spell out nothing but wildfire.

This goes through his mind in a split second, and he realizes he can't get up. The soldier is practically stuck on the lieutenant, so he has no choice but to crush the opposing force's fingers with the butt of his musket. Lassiter jumps to his feet, his vision blurring from the sudden action. His horse rears back away from the Confederate soldier, who is reaching for his musket with admirable strength. Lassiter's never been one to end the life of one who might survive, and the thought of just severely wounding a man is enough to make him rethink his life, so he moves away, remounting his horse and being reminded of his bruises from his earlier stunt. A cannon goes off, and Lassiter looks over as a force of habit to see Penny Winslow come out of the tent, aim the rifle he lent her, and fire.

Lassiter looks across the battlefield to see Quatrail fall off his horse and tumble down the hill to the side of the bridge.

No one knows except him and Winslow, who smirks a devilish smirk and retreats back into the tent. Lassiter is shocked she was able to be so accurate from such a distance, but he's glad anyway. He realizes the battle has been going on longer than he thought, and it's a miracle that a fire hasn't started yet.

He glances across the field toward the camp, where only the tops of the tents are visible. Colonel Vick hoists up her musket - only for a bullet to enter her thigh.

Lassiter nearly screams.

Instead, he grabs the horse's reigns and wrenches it in the colonel's direction. The horse whines in response to the incredibly rough treatment, but it understands. He races across the field, with soldiers from both sides scattering to avoid being trampled. Spencer notices, too, and elbows a rebel in the face and shoves through the masses of battling men to get to the colonel. Lassiter gets off his horse with little regard to safety, nearly falling off _again_. The horse stands by idly as the lieutenant falls to his knees. Spencer comes to a skidding halt next to them.

"What...what happened?" the psychic manages, hooking his bugle on his arm and dropping down to their level. Lassiter can't even stammer out an answer, too occupied pressing his hands against the wound as if he could stop the bleeding. The white of his gloves turns dark red in a matter of moments.

"We have to move her," Lassiter eventually declares. Spencer nods, and they both struggle to pick her up without irritating the still heavily flowing wound. Vick remains silent for the most part, but occasionally the squeak of pain escapes her. As they step into the medical tent, her hat falls off.

Guster nearly faints at all the blood, but stays upright. Winslow has stepped out with the musket, probably to get her sweet revenge, so Lassiter calls McNab in from battle and stations him at the door, to redirect other people to the other medical tent.

O'Hara is the only other patient. She's able to stand now, limping to the side as Lassiter and Spencer place the colonel down on a cot. Guster sets to work immediately, and O'Hara pulls Lassiter to the side. He looks like he's been in the heat of the battle - the shallow scrapes on his cheek tell the tale of his fall, and the blood drenching his uniform could be misleading. He sits off to the side with O'Hara as Guster tends to the wound with speed, wrapping it in a clean bandage.

"See, I learned this trick from other slaves," Guster tells Shawn, as he wraps the stretched cotton around Vick's thigh. She's biting a bullet to keep from screaming, because the pain is agonizing and only got worse after Guster pulled the bullet from the back of her leg. "Cotton is cheaper, but keeps infection away if you heat it in between uses."

"Yeah, that's great, Gus," Spencer murmurs, his hat in hand. His hair is, unusually, a mess. "Glad you're here."

The battle ends. The Confederates lost, retreating and taking Quatrail's body with them. Lassiter doesn't move from his spot in the tent, next to O'Hara's cot with a nice view of Vick's. Spencer is knocked out in a vacant cot, just below O'Hara's feet. Guster is in the other medical tent, and it is nearly silent.

Lassiter's ears are ringing. He can't stop hearing that musket go off.

"Lieutenant," O'Hara murmurs. She's sitting up in bed, dipping a cloth in cold water. "I can take care of her."

Lassiter watches her, processing her words. The events of the day run through his head for the upteenth time in the hour: the letter, the kiss, the battle, the shot. The waiting.

"She's breaking a fever," she continues, draping it over Vick's forehead. The colonel shivers, pulling the blankets closer to her in her sleep. "Nothing I can't handle, though. What she needs is for you to be strong. Go to sleep."

With a sigh, the lieutenant colonel stands up, realizing that she's probably right. He hasn't slept in hours, and his eyes are irritated from the dust. Before he leaves, he looks back at the peaceful scene: Spencer is getting rest, O'Hara is living out her motherly tendencies, and Colonel Vick...

"We made it," he murmurs to himself, as the tent flaps swish behind him. "We're alive, aren't we?"

His sleep is dreamless, but it doesn't come easy. He sleeps for a total of three hours before waking up to the night-owl soldiers' conversations. Lassiter, still fiddling with the straps of his suspenders, steps out of his tent without his uniform on. He goes unnoticed, but this isn't a problem at all.

The sunrise is gorgeous. He throws on his coat, not bothering to button it because the air is so stifling that the coat is hardly going to help him. The clouds are rolling in, which is a relief, because something needs to wash the blood away.

And, watching that sunrise, Lassiter thinks that for a split second, things are going to be okay.


End file.
